Review: Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up. – Goodreads

My Alien obsession continues with this novel. And seriously, it has left me quenched for more.

After reading The Host, I had very high expectation for this. I did enjoy reading it, but I found it somewhat difficult. Its biggest downfall for me is that the way it is written was disorientating. It has a very straight to the point and blunt style, but the tenses were all over the place.

At first, I thought it was written as a diary entry, but then it changed slightly to first person halfway through the first chapter. That puzzled me. Also, I was always confused if they were talking about the past (because there are lots of flashbacks in this), or if they were talking in the present

The continual jumping back and forth between past and present made this hard for me to read – hindering the experience. I personally prefer something easy to read (in short, I’m a lazy reader) that flows and doesn’t jump between tenses. You have to be very aware of tenses and scene changes to pick up where you are.

Also what disorientated me is that nearly each chapter changed perspectives. A positive about this is that it keeps the book from becoming boring and biased. However, it needed to be more distinct about whose eyes we were viewing the events from. This became easier further into the story, but for the first few chapters, I’d be reading blindly with no concept of what’s happening until I finally got an idea of who was telling the story. Then I would have to go back to the start of the chapter and read it again.

Other than the difficulties I had reading it, it was well-developed, dynamic and surprisingly realistic. Sci-fi realistic? I say realistic because the author has done an amazing job at describing the emotions of the characters in their situations. The utter hopelessness, but strength and will to survive is demonstrated all throughout, guiding every decision made by the characters. Even the mysterious Evan Walkers’ betrayal to his own kind becomes clear eventually.

What I don’t really get is what kind of life form the aliens are. I also think Evan’s superhero act towards the end was a bit un-realistic. It was almost as of the author was taking the easy way out of a tricky situation. But then again, I liked it. I think Cassie needed to be properly saved, and I like that Evan got one more chance to demonstrate his feelings for her and show what side he is on.

I’m such a sucker for a love story.

My final rating is 4 Thumbs! Definitely reading the debut! I just hope I’m not disappointed.